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https://github.com/brianhicks/notes-app-2020


https://github.com/brianhicks/notes-app-2020

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# Notes



This is my implementation of a note-taking app, organized around the following principles:



- **Linking creates structure as necessary.**

  Having to choose a category or folder for notes just makes me tired.

  I want to write and connect stuff as I think of it.

  Structure will emerge where it needs to!

  I should also be able to see all linked/unlinked references to a note.



- **Notes are for _me_.**

  Sharing is important but secondary, and exporting should be fine in most cases.

  Note, though, that this means I want importing to work great so I can slurp in stuff from multiple places!



- **Anything I can see, I can edit.**

  There should be as few read-only views in the app as I can manage.



- **Keyboard shortcuts for the win.**

  I want to be able to navigate completely with the keyboard.

  Vim-ish keybindings, if possible!



- **If I can't organize things I need to do, I'm not going to use the tool.**

  It should handle TODOs nicely (due/defer, mark/complete/cancel, recurrence rules?)

  It should also be possible to reorder/filter todos in some sort of aggregate view.



- **Aggregate views reveal structure.**

  These look like queries.

  Maybe I want to see only the first marked TODO in each note?

  Should be doable.



## Keyboard Shortcuts



| Shortcut                                         | Action                          | Implemented |

|--------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------|-------------|

| Alt-Up                     | Move edit cursor up             | No          |

| Alt-Shift-Up    | Move node up                    | No          |

| Alt-Down                   | Move edit cursor down           | No          |

| Alt-Shift-Down  | Move node down                  | No          |

| Alt-Right                  | Move edit cursor to first child | No          |

| Alt-Shift-Right | Indent                          | No          |

| Alt-Left                   | Move edit cursor to parent      | No          |

| Alt-Shift-Left  | Dedent                          | No          |

| Tab                                   | Indent                          | Yes         |

| Shift-Tab                  | Dedent                          | Yes         |

| Enter                                 | Split node at cursor            | Yes         |

| Backspace                             | Join nodes                      | Yes         |

| Esc                                   | Stop editing                    | Yes         |



## Interaction Ideas



- It'd be cool to be able to select/export a group of notes.

  These could either be viewed in a read-only mode or imported into someone else's database.

  I guess it would also be possible to structure the export with CRDTs for easy merges.

- It'd be cool to persistently save a database somewhere shared, but that potentially violates the "no formal structure" principle so it needs to be done carefully.

- It'd be super slick to do something like [idea fight](https://idea-fight.hoelz.ro) where one could order the children of a node.



## Next things to do



- [x] basic tree editing

   - [x] ability to move a node up and down as well as in and out

       - [x] moving up and down to siblings

       - [x] if you're at the first child, moving up goes to the parent.

       - [x] if you're at the last child, moving down goes to the parent's next sibling.

- [x] persistence

- [x] nice design

- [x] navigation by link

- [x] sidebar improvements

   - [x] display and sort by last modified time

   - [x] show first couple rows of content

- [x] package to be deployed by Nix

- [x] links to a note should change if you change the title

- [x] backlinking

- [x] syncing with CouchDB / PouchDB servers

- [x] the module layout reflects some old design ideas (`Node.Content`, `Node` being separate from `Database.Row`)

- [x] too many things are named `Node`. There's `Node`, `Node.Content.Node`, and I think a few others

- [ ] there aren't any inline formats. I'd like *italic*, **bold**, and `inline code` at a minimum. Possibly `:highlights:` or `~strikethrough~` too?

   - [ ] I'd like a few more block formats too... `>` for blockquotes in particular

- [ ] default selection to the end of the text box

- [ ] show the incoming links along with their titles

- [ ] fix encoding issue on notes.bytes.zone serving

- [ ] make it possible to edit an empty node

- [ ] get rid of onBlur handler (just use esc)

- [ ] I'd really like some level of autocomplete for note titles in notes

- [ ] auto-link URLs

- [ ] hitting backspace at the beginning of a non-empty node should not delete it

- [ ] automatically create notes when they're first linked?

- [ ] only show incoming links for notes, not nodes

- [ ] profile some large notes and try to make them much faster

- [ ] brackets are valid syntax for non-link reasons. Don't block that!

- [ ] don't discard content as easily when something's invalid ] ]

- [ ] change the page title to the current note

- [ ] tree editing

   - [ ] moving edit focus around

       - [ ] hitting alt-up and alt-down should go to the previous/next sibling

   - refinements on existing behavior

     - [x] move to the previous sibling when I backspace through a node

     - [ ] hitting tab/shift-tab should preserve the cursor position, if possible

         - Html.Keyed? Blocking keyup defaults as well as keydown?

     - [ ] alt-shift-up and alt-shift-down to move nodes

     - [ ] preserve cursor position when joining nodes with backspace (put it at the join point)

     - [ ] delete selected text when splitting with enter (but if it's collapsed, no change)

     - [ ] alt-enter or shift-enter or something should insert a linebreak in the current node

     - [ ] cmd-enter should close the node in addition to Escape

- [ ] search

  - [ ] finding nodes and navigating to their notes

  - [ ] backlinks

- [ ] come up with a consistent design for keybindings (e.g. alt moves edit, alt+shift moves node)

- [ ] offline support (webworker, caching?)

- [ ] exporting to

  - (likely) markdown

  - (less likely) rich text of some kind

- [ ] allow multiple notes to be edited concurrently

- [ ] more metadata (todos, etc)



### Notes to Self



elm-rte-toolkit looks cool, and it may make sense to add it later, but don't go for the complexity now!

Keep things simple as long as possible!



## Layout



![](./docs/screenshot.png)



## Prior Art



- [Roam](https://roamresearch.com) does bidirectional links amazingly well.

- [Bear](https://bear.app) has a really nice user experience.



## Icons



TODO: I need to add this to an in-app page somewhere.



- chick by Symbolon from the Noun Project